'Desperate Housewives' wraps up 8-season run

The United States nighttime soap opera "Desperate Housewives" ended its eight-season run with a 2-hour season finale. The Emmy Award-winning show, which ended Sunday night, was created by writer-producer Marc Cherry and boasted an ensemble cast led by Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Eva Longoria. Other stars who appeared on the series were Nicollette Sheridan, Steven Culp, Ricardo Antonio Chavira, Mark Moses, Andrea Bowen, Jesse Metcalfe, Doug Savant, Alfre Woodard, Kyle MacLachlan, Dana Delany, Neal McDonough, Drea de Matteo, Vanessa Williams and Kathryn Joosten. The Salt Lake Tribune said Cherry was inspired to create his show about unhappy, upper-middle-class suburbanites after he and his mother Martha saw a news story on TV about a woman who drowned her children. "I turned to her and said, 'Gosh, can you imagine a woman being so desperate that she would hurt her own children?'" the Tribune reported Cherry said shortly before "Desperate Housewives" made its debut. "And my mother took her cigarette out of her mouth and turned to me and said, 'I've been there.'" Cherry told the newspaper aspects of several of the characters are based on his mother, particularly the passive-aggressive perfectionist Bree, played by Marcia Cross. He also said he has been happy to work out his own personal issues through the show. "I adore my mom," he said. "Without my mother, there would be no 'Desperate Housewives.'"